The cat jumps through an access panel at the bottom of a louvered door. I open it, assuming it leads to a closet, only to be taken aback by the odor of soiled cat litter.
Once I adjust to the smell, however, I flip the light switch at the door, and the space illuminates. I see the litter box is situated in a sort of studio . . . and a generously sized one at that. It’s about seven feet wide and at least twice as deep, with three square-shaped windows spaced at equal intervals along the left wall. A good-size pine table occupies the center of the space. An enormous appliance of some sort stares at me from the far end. At first I think it’s an extra oven. But then I realize it’s an industrial kiln.
A kiln.
Natasha Markham is not an artist. She was a finance major. Any half-artsy classes she took as an undergrad, she dreaded.
And she just isn’t the type to use, let alone purchase, a potter’s wheel, but there’s one of those in this room, too.
Maybe I don’t know my college roommate as well as I thought. I certainly couldn’t know less about my husband; why should I know anything about the woman who took him away from me?
I wonder if she’s heard the news, that Micah’s been declared dead. Tomorrow I’m going to ask Christian if he knows how to get ahold of her. I think the former resident of this house and I need to have a talk. If not about Micah’s dying, about the life he’d been living with Natasha.
Where did she and her children go?
A fleeting thought: maybe she goes north to Chicago every summer. It’s the best time to be in the Windy City . . . all the festivals and fairs . . .
Or maybe the whole clan spends summers on Plum Lake.
Micah could pull that off. I’ve never been to the house on Plum Lake.
And Mick and Shell have been in Europe for six weeks, so maybe Natasha and the kids stayed longer than usual.
Micah’s car was at C-Way. Maybe he was paying a visit to the mysterious Tasha and the kids before his trip to New York.
And my daughter recognizes the little girl in the pictures we found in this house, and that little girl just happens to share the name of Bella’s imaginary friend. If Bella hasn’t been to Key West before, she may have met Nini up north at Plum Lake.
I should call Detective Guidry. I will. First thing in the morning.
A glowing orange light blinks on in the shadows of the garden on the side of the house.
At first, I assume it’s a firefly—strange, seeing one in November, as they appear in early summer in Chicago and stay for only a few weeks—but a breath later, I realize it’s a cigarette.
Instantly, I turn off the studio light and back away from the windows, ducking into the laundry room.
Someone is smoking in my garden.
Someone is looking into the house.
And the coincidence is too great to ignore. It has to be the same person who was smoking on the fairway back at the Shadowlands.
I was certain no one had followed us.
But apparently, I was wrong.
Chapter 26
I spring toward the back door—it’s locked—and flip switches until a light on the porch turns on. I do the same with the front door and at the side entrance, where double doors lead to a patio.
The entire yard is illuminated now, but I don’t see a single thing out of place. Just a gate at the back, leading to the alleyway, an empty swimming pool, and Florida foliage. No mysterious smoking man.
Did I imagine it?
The place is deadly silent. Pink and blue and purple blossoms ripple in the breeze, like waves on the sea. Bobbing somewhere out there, however, is a stalker, artfully staying out of sight. Either in the midst of the blooms or hiding away in my subconscious, waiting to drive me completely insane.
I listen hard but hear nothing.
We’re too far from Duval Street to be bothered by the hubbub of the tourists; we’re too far from the coast to hear the waves breaking on the sand. We’re isolated here, in the gardens of a place someone—Micah, maybe?—aptly named Goddess Island.
I draw in a slow breath but can’t detect the cigarette smoke. Maybe it was my imagination, or maybe I am slowly slipping into the same sort of world in which my mother lived out the last of her days.
Seeing things that aren’t there.
Remembering things vastly different than they happened.
Even the image of Micah is dissipating with every passing hour. I thought he was a golden god of a man. Dedicated to his daughter and me. Beautiful. Caring. Ambitious.
But he was deceitful and manipulative.
How could a sane person have been so wrong about so many things? How could I have been so blind?
All the times I considered worst-case scenarios, I never assumed I’d someday find myself in this predicament.
Then, from out of nowhere, I hear the tinkling tune of a music box.
I make a break for the stairs—my daughter is asleep up there—and take them two at a time, the music box growing in crescendo.
My mother’s last hours flash in my mind: my mother and her jewels; the bald spot at her right temple and the blood blooming like tiny buds at her scalp where she habitually ripped hair from the follicles; the blue table; the filthy tank top hanging off her bony frame; the knife in her hand . . .
I skid into the master bedroom, heart beating like mad, only to find no sign of my kid. My ears cloud with the eerie sound of the music. “Ellie-Belle!” I tear her blanket from the bed to confirm she’s not hidden beneath it. “Elizabella!”
No, no, no . . .
Flashes of the cigarette glowing on my lawn, on the fairway back home, haunt me as I whip through the room. I peek into the en suite bathroom, in the shower, in the compartmentalized toilet room. I even check in the cabinets under the sinks.
It seems as if the music surrounds me, as if it could be coming through the air vents or echoing off the walls. I can’t pinpoint where it’s originating, but if I can find the music box, I suspect I’ll find my daughter.
I open the closet door to see empty racks and rods . . . but no headstrong three-year-old. “Bella!”
The sound of her laughter is an instant relief.
I follow the resounding joy of her giggling down the travertine-tiled hallway to a dark room at the far end, facing out over the back lawn. She’s sitting in the center of the floor, on a round, pink area rug, the texture of which resembles cotton candy. The music box plinks out its song; the pink ballerina in some dancer’s pose spins around merrily.
“That’s funny, Nini! What else happened?”
“Bella!”
She jumps when I turn on the light. “Mommy!”
“Bella, what are you doing in here?”
Her eyebrows come together in a frown. “I’m playing with Nini.”
“It’s bedtime,” I remind her. “And when I put you to bed in one room, you need to stay in one room, so Mommy doesn’t worry.”
“Nini said this is my room.”
“She did, huh?” I crouch down to her level, then sit and pull her into my lap. “Do you like this room?”
“Uh-huh!” She nods enthusiastically.
“This is Nini’s room?”
“My room. Nini says.” A canopy bed, full size, is draped with pink and pale-purple tulle, and an enormous dollhouse is atop a double dresser situated on the opposite wall. In an alcove by the window, its wooden seat tethered to the ceiling with thick, knobby ropes, is an honest-to-goodness swing.
A swing.
In a little girl’s bedroom.
Just like Micah suggested we do at the Shadowlands.
“My room, my room, my room.”
Of course Elizabella likes this room. It’s everything a little girl could dream of. It’s her favorite colors: pink and purple. And . . .
I zero in on a framed drawing hanging on the wall near a doorway to a shared bathroom. The picture is of a girl with long brown hair, big brown eyes, strawberry ice-cream cone—Bella’s favorite—in hand. It’s the work of a child older than Bella, a child who has better control of pencil grip and fine motor skills. Is this caricature of my daughter?
Nini must be an artist.
She is.
A chill darts up my spine. “Let’s . . . Bella, let’s look at the other rooms. You can pick whichever room you’d like.”
“This room.” She points to the floor.